How did soldiers hyped themselves up in ancient times?

by Zealousideal_Bet8123

In many movies there are scenes right before a battle, where soldiers beat their shields with swords or spears or they strike the ground with their spears.

How accurate is that? Was it used to motivate themselves or to scare their opponents or both?

What other ways were used for motivation right before the battle?

gynnis-scholasticus

There were various methods. Our Greek warfare expert u/Iphikrates has summed up most of these for his expertise here, in the subsection "On the Matter of Facing the Spears". For some specifics, the same Iphikrates has described the importance of gods and religious rituals before battle here. There was also the commander's speech, which I have written about here, myself linking to yet another answer by Iphikrates. Though I should note that military historian and Romanist Bret Devereaux, who has discussed battle-speeches in great detail on his blog, argues that their point was not to hype the soldiers up but to calm them to avoid panic once the fight starts. Finally, there was also the use of music and singing, which u/ResponsibleMushroom9 has described rather generally in this comment, and the aforementioned Greek warfare expert here and here